Four jobs. Five kids. Three meals. Bills on bills. Depicted as lazy and irresponsible by money-hungry billionaires who avoid taking accountability for the problems they have caused.
When funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was cut during the federal government shutdown in November, our town stepped up.
Community food banks saw increased food donations, the annual Turkey Trot raised thousands of dollars to combat hunger, and our school alone gathered more than a thousand pounds of food to donate to food banks.
However, our world shouldn’t have to be worried about food stamps being cut.
No one should be in a state of panic wondering if they can afford groceries. No one should be skipping meals to make ends meet. No one should be worrying about where the next meal comes from.
According to Go Banking Rates, Elon Musk makes around $2.25 billion per week, or $321 million a day, and according to the United Nations, it would take $93 billion per year to end world hunger by 2030.
To most Americans that’s a daunting number. Something they couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams.
However, it’s only 39% of Jeff Bezos’s wealth, 34% of Mark Zuckerberg’s, and 19% of Elon Musk’s.
19% of Musk’s wealth which would bring his income down to $395 billion and be regenerated to his normal income of $487 billion in less than a year.
Yet, it’s the towns like ours who always seem to support those in need time after time.
The combined daily income of the ten richest people in the world is more than $1.59 billion, meaning it would take just those ten people fewer than 60 days to end hunger worldwide.
This gap in wealth has been depicted repetitively in media, movies, and even books, reflecting the issue present today.
The Hunger Games, written by Suzanne Collins and adapted into a movie, shows the result of world hunger leading to the United States being split into twelve districts and one Capitol. The Capitol contains the rich who never worry about when their next meal may be. But everyone else? They’re giving up their lives just to feed their families.
The dystopian story no longer seems too far from reality as we also have our own group of “Capitol” residents. Billionaires. A group of people who individually have more than 40 million times more money than the average American, which, according to the Social Security Administration, the average income in America is $67,027 a year per person.
But the gap in wealth isn’t a new issue.
It dates back to before the 18th century.
During the French Revolution while citizens were dying from hunger and famine, Marie Antoinette was throwing party after party. Spending nearly $20,000 per day on luxury goods, the French were provoked. And how did Antoinette respond?
Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.” Or in English, “Let them eat cake.”
Which seems to be what today’s billionaires are saying to us.
The gap between rich and poor in the 18th century was less than today’s rich and poor gap and still, today, so many are hungry. So why does it seem like no one cares for those starving?
However, on Nov. 4, Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist candidate, became mayor of New York City.
With a goal to make living more affordable, his ideas of cheaper housing and food sounded appealing to the majority of the city’s citizens.
According to CNN, Mamdani said, “There must be a better distribution of wealth for all of God’s children in this country.” While also trying to tax billionaires to even the wealth in the city, maybe Mamdani’s ideas are what it takes to feed America.
Socialism is the idea that wealth created inside of an economy should benefit the society redistributing and leveling the wealth gap. This would make it easier to access and buy food at affordable prices for all Americans, but this idea isn’t so pleasing to the billionaires.
Having billions of dollars while watching citizens starve is cruel. The idea of having the world’s first trillionaire while famine kills the poor is alarming.
In one of the most economically successful counties in the world, we fail to feed 47.4 million people
The 1%, the richest percentile, could pay for the 36% of American households that are food insecure. These billionaires have too much money and too little of it is going to the right place. There’s too many people to feed, and too little humanity.
Until these billionaires choose to step up and help, those going without food are relying on food drives and donations to make it meal to meal.
But will that remain to be enough?